1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a human-following robot, method and program for searching a location of a target to be followed (hereinafter, referred to as a following target) when failing to track the following target, and more particularly, to a human-following robot, method and program for searching and redetecting a following target by estimating a location of the following target based on map information and trajectory information received from a server and then moving to the estimated location by utilizing walking pattern information.
[Description about National Research and Development Support]
This study was supported by the Robot Industry Source Technology Development Project—Leading Research Support Project of Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy, Republic of Korea (Development of recognition technology for identification and behavior of users who are close to 99% recognition rate for 30 users in a real environment based on recognition sensor convergence, Project No. 1415145864) under the Korea Institute of Science and Technology.
2. Description of the Related Art
Techniques for tracking a specific target by using a mobile robot on which a vision sensor such as a camera is loaded are being used in many fields. These techniques may be used for consistently providing information or service to a specific target at a place such as a hospital, a school, a shopping mall, a museum, an exhibition or the like or for caring a specific target. A tracking system for this may basically perform the steps of detecting a target, tracking a location of the target, and following the target at a suitable speed. When performing the steps, techniques such as a laser range finder for detecting and tracking a person are broadly used. The laser range finder outputs depth information in all directions laterally parallel to a sensor, and a tracking system tracks a location of a leg, estimated from the depth information, by using a Kalman filter or the like.
However, in a complicated or crowded place such as in a shopping mall, a museum, an exhibition or the like, the existing technique for detecting and tracking a target by using only the laser range finder may miss the target at unexpected situations, for example when a target to be followed (hereinafter, also referred to as a following target) is hidden by another person or any obstacle placed between the following target and the sensor or when the following target rapidly moves around a corner.
In order to solve this problem, a technique for rapidly redetecting a target by expecting a current location of the target from a depth image photographed by a RGB-D camera when the following target is missed has been studied. However, as time passes longer after missing the following target, it becomes more difficult to expect a current location of the target, and so it is not easy to consistently follow a human in a complicated environment with a large floating population.